“We are grateful to Otis for his contributions, but the time has come for someone else to continue the progress that has been made and to pave the way for even more in the future,” Lord wrote in a statement. “There’s work to be done, and I am confident the City and its citizens will be best served by new leadership in the Public Safety Department.”

Lord has the sole ability to hire and fire staff. He advised Mayor Bill Young and the council of his decision but Young declined to talk about it because it was Lord’s call and a personnel matter.

Rhodes was hired by the public safety department in December 1991, according to his record with the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy.

A statement released by town spokeswoman, Elizabeth Boineau, praised Rhodes for his work at the department including implementing the plan to combine the police and fire departements into one, bringing violent crime down to some of the lowest levels in twenty years and helping the department achieve an ISO 3 fire rating.

Major Ken Dasen, the assistant public safety director, will serve as acting director until an interim director is hired. Check back as more details become available.

Staff Writer Natalie Caula contributed to this report.

Comments

Notice about comments:

The Post and Courier is pleased to offer readers the enhanced ability to comment on stories. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point.

We do not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. If you find a comment that is objectionable, please click the X that appears in the upper right corner when you hover over a comment. This will send the comment to Facebook for review. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Use and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website. Read our full terms and conditions.